


no kind of romantic

by hydrospanners



Series: renegade [25]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anniversaries, Docember 2018, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-16 00:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16943574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: Doc knew what he was getting into when he signed up for this marriage, but that doesn't make him feel any better about spending his first anniversary alone.





	no kind of romantic

On the first anniversary of the only one of his weddings he actually bothered to attend, Archiban Kimble comes home to an empty apartment, pours a single glass of whiskey, and considers his life choices. He takes the holocomm from his pocket and tosses it onto the kitchen counter, the durasteel leaving a deep gouge in the luxurious, organic wood that would fry every one of Ceetwo’s circuits if he saw it.

 

(What does it say about his state of mind that thinking of  _ Ceetwo _ is enough to make his heart ache?)

 

The light on the comm is still flashing as Doc traces his finger around the smooth metal edges, hesitating each time it passes the button that will play a message he’s been avoiding since yesterday. He doesn’t know why he’s putting it off. He knows perfectly well what the message will say, just the same as he knows who’s to blame for it. He’s the one that left.  _ He’s _ the reason they’re clear across from the galaxy from each other today. Doc’s never been the sort to avoid things before but--

 

Well.

 

It’s the  _ day _ is all.

 

He knew when he married Nirea Velaran that she was no kind of romantic. Back then, Doc hadn’t thought he was much of one either.

 

It’s funny the kinds of things you learn about yourself.

 

He’s never expected Rea to be the sort of person who remembers anniversaries. She’s got a whole galaxy weighing down on her shoulders and most days she’d forget her own name if Teeseven wasn’t there to remind her. On the list of things it’s important for her to know, the day Archiban Kimble sprang a wedding on her is pretty damn near the bottom. He knows that. He’s okay with that.

 

He doesn’t need her to remember. Doesn’t need her to make any kind of sentimental gesture. He just needs to be wherever she is.

 

He’d made plans, back when this residency first came up and he realized what day was right there in the middle of it. He’d thought he could just take a few days off, make a hyperspace jump to whatever warzone she was knee deep in out on the rim, and the problem would be solved before Rea ever knew it existed. He’d imagined laying her out across the war table after lights out and making her come at the exact moment Seeger had made the whole thing official. It would’ve been just the kind of romance his wife would appreciate.

 

But the timing was shit. A three day trip for some quick sex between shootouts would’ve kept him trapped here, alone in this glittering hell, for an extra three weeks. The math just didn’t work.

 

He’d thought he might bring Rea to him instead, but he knew almost as soon as he mentioned it what a longshot it would be. In the two months he’s been on Coruscant, she’s planned four separate visits. She hasn’t shown up for any of them. 

 

Doc knew it would be like that when he said yes to this job. He’s a smart man. He knows his wife, knows how she lives and where her priorities are. He knew from the start that he shouldn’t expect to see her until his time here was up. He knew he was staring down the barrel of four months apart. Four long months of dirty holocalls and drinking alone. Of cold beds and eerie silence in a luxurious, yet strangely uncomfortable apartment. By himself. Alone.

 

He’d thought he would be okay with it. He’d survived twenty-seven years without Nirea Velaran. How bad could four months be?

 

For being such a smart man, Doc could be a real dumbass sometimes.

 

He taps the ‘play’ button on his comm.

 

A spectre of Rea appears in the air above it, blue and crackling. The image quality is too shit to really make out her expression, but he thinks it looks like guilt.

 

“You know what I’m about to say.” Her voice is tinny and distant. Blaster fire is screaming in the background. “Probably past time I stopped making promises I can’t keep so I guess… I’ll come when I can. I miss you like hell and--” A loud noise cuts her off and the image cracks, shifting into formless static. When she reappears a few seconds later, the picture is hazy and distorted, her voice barely audible over the crackling of the signal. She says only a few words before the message is abruptly cut off. “--and I love you, Archiban.”

 

Doc lays out his suit anyway. It’s Rea’s favorite, the same burgundy and crosh hide from their first date, and if sitting around, drinking her favorite whiskey in her favorite suit is the closest he can be to her right now—Well, he’ll take what he can get. 

 

He takes a long, hot shower before dressing. Lets himself indulge in the luxury of steaming water cascading over his body, loosening the tense muscles in his shoulder and neck. He briefly considers letting his left hand be his date for the evening, but it’s too disappointing a replacement to work up any kind of enthusiasm.

 

He’s honest-to-stars moping.

 

Tomorrow morning he’ll probably laugh about it. He’ll shoot Rea an overwrought message about how the stars aren’t as bright without her that’ll play as a joke even if he kind of thinks it’s true. It’ll be charming and funny and he’ll think of how her whole body seems to bloom when she laughs and that thought alone will get him through the week. 

 

For tonight, though, he sighs into the foggy mirror and half-heartedly moisturizes. Decides to go full self-pity and skip the shave--overgrown stubble is the traditional look of loneliness--and skips straight to the cologne. It’s Nirea’s favorite, rare and expensive enough that he saves it for special occasions, though he doesn’t think she’s ever noticed that. She always thinks he smells delicious anyway. 

 

For the life of him, Archiban can’t figure out why he’s bitter about that.

 

Marriage can be hard. And not always the fun kind, either. He wonders if he should call his mother and congratulate her on finally being right about something. He’s sad and starved enough for attention that he goes as far as picking up his holocomm before it occurs to him that this level of pettiness will set Rea’s relations with his mother back by decades. He hardly cares what his parents think of his wife or their marriage, but Rea sure as hell does.

 

He’s still a little surprised by how devoted she turned out to be to his family. Archiban hadn’t spoken to his parents in over a year when he woke up one morning to find her on a holocall with his father and his aunt Tilly. They were talking about pazaak.

 

She still talks to them more than he does. He suspects she likes them better than he does, even though none of them seem to like her much at all. (Honestly, how can he be expected to like people who can’t appreciate  _ Rea _ ? He’s met Sith--an alarming number of them--who have a better sense of her worth.)

 

Because he’s a masochist, Doc wraps himself in the expensive amaranthine robe that Rea’s still trying to pretend was a gift from someone else and heads back to the kitchen for another drink. He probably shouldn’t--not without his unsinkable Jedi to back him up--but he’s already committed to this moping thing and Archiban Kimble never does anything by halves.

 

He pours three fingers of Rea’s favorite Corellian label and he’s two fingers in before he notices the glint of metal in the corner of his eye. 

 

Teeseven is parked in the middle of the living room doing no kind of hiding. (He can almost hear Rea’s voice in his head. “ _ If he was an assassin _ ,” she would say, “ _ you’d be dead.” _ ) 

 

But he isn’t an assassin. He’s an astromech with a stream of flowers bursting out of an extension in his chassis that Archiban is pretty sure was intended for a flamethrower. The whole living room is already covered in delicate red and pink petals, and they’re starting to drift into the kitchen through the breeze from the open balcony door.

 

He blinks. Faintly, he hears the swell of orchestral music. It takes a minute before he recognizes it as the soundtrack to that Alderanian romance vid he secretly loves. Curious, but not daring enough to be hopeful, he lets his feet carry him toward the sound. Toward the balcony and flicker of candlelight against the darkened skyline. Toward the familiar scent of citrus and spice and metal.

 

Rea is waiting for him.

 

She’s standing there looking like some kind of goddess, draped in gauzy blue shimmersilk that clings to every perfectly sculpted muscle on her perfectly sculpted body, smiling the most shit-eating smile he’s ever seen. There’s a storm of flower petals as the wind whips around her, tossing her hair in just the right way, setting the candles to flickering.

 

It’s a scene from a starsdamned vid. 

 

“Holy shit,” he says.

 

“Happy anniversary,” she says.

 

When it becomes apparent that he’s not going to be able to move any time soon, Rea rolls her eyes and comes to him. He’s probably imagining things, but he’s pretty sure she crosses the landing pad in slow motion. He’s also sure there’s a producer somewhere adding special effects to his mind that make her fucking glow.

 

He means to say something smooth about how devastating she looks and how much he’s missed her and how painfully in love he is, but what tumbles out of his mouth is, “I can’t believe you did all this.” And then, because he’s already committed and Archiban Kimble never does anything by halves, he puts the back of his hand to her forehead and adds, “Are you feeling okay? Not possessed or anything?”

 

And because Rea is Rea, she just laughs and pulls his hand away, pressing a wet kiss to his palm as her thumbs massage the inside of his wrist. It’s a testament to how lonely the past two months have been that he finds the gesture almost unbearably erotic.

 

“I love you Archiban Kimble,” she says, pressing a kiss to wrist. “I wanted to make sure you never forget it.”

 

Doc drinks her in with wide eyes, his veins on fire with love and desire and longing, his stomach swooping to his knees as her plush lips stretch into the most heart-stopping smile he’s ever seen. Nirea Velaran is no kind of romantic, but here she is anyway. Dressed like a starsdamned princess, kissing his hand in the middle of a scene straight from a storybook. 

 

It’s the most romantic shit he’s seen in his entire life, and she did it all for him. Because she loves him.

 

They’ve been married for a year, and his heart still stutters in his chest when he thinks of it. 

 

“Never thought I’d see you speechless, Handsome.” Nirea’s grin turns wicked as her hand strays to the back of his neck, stroking the downy hairs at the nape..

 

“I love you,” Archiban breathes, totally unable to summon his usual brand of humor. “And I’m gonna keep doing it forever, like the wookiees. I don’t wanna stop.”

 

He doesn’t know how much time he has. Maybe just the night. Maybe not even that. But he decides in that moment, as she throws her head back and laughs that warm, throaty laugh he’s been missing like hell, that she’s going to feel as loved as he does before she leaves. He’s going to wring his heart out and bathe her in every fucking drop of love that pours out. He’s going to smother her. He’s going to terrify her.

 

He’s going to have the best damn first anniversary that any man has ever had.

 

Rea’s still laughing as she draws him down for a long, lingering kiss. He luxuriates in it, in the feel of her lips, warm and chapped and smiling against his. When he draws away, she kisses her way along his jaw and up to his ear.

 

He sighs happily, relishing the feel of her so close. Her scent and her energy. “I would marry you now if I hadn’t done it already.”

 

Her laughter brushes the shell of his ear like a caress. “You old softie.”

 

Doc pulls back, failing utterly to hide his grin as he pretends to be offended. “Watch who you’re calling old,” he says, then adds, “And soft.”

 

Rea waggles her eyebrows in a way that shouldn’t be as seductive as it is—it’s been a long couple of months—and presses her hips closer to his. He wants her so bad it hurts. “Prove me wrong, Doctor Kimble," she purrs.

 

“I think you’ll find I rise to every challenge that comes my way.”

 

“Stars above,” Rea groans, dragging his mouth back to hers. “Stop talking and kiss me you impossible man.”


End file.
